How a Launch Dashboard Can Help Your Next Launch Run Smoothly
Today’s the day! You’ve spent hours planning, strategizing, and prepping. Your team is on board. It’s time to execute your launch — whether it’s a brand new product, a re-release of a best seller, or a big sale.
Launches are always thrilling and a bit overwhelming. Until you’re in the middle of it and you realize that you have no idea how it’s going. And you’re too busy executing your launch to dig into the metrics inside multiple tools and software.
That’s where a launch dashboard comes in handy — to prevent uncertainty and extra stress! A launch dashboard can help you stay on top of your metrics and make decisions for your launch and business.
What does a launch dashboard look like and how can you create one? Let’s find out.
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Evaluate your funnels and conversion rates
Imagine you host a free training that leads into an open cart period for a product, subscription, membership, or course. You probably want to know how that funnel is working for you (or not).
With a launch dashboard, you can easily view how people are moving through your funnel at every step. A launch dashboard can show you how many people are viewing the page, how many people complete the registration, how many watch the training, and so on. You can even see the conversion rate between these steps.
This data gives you an idea of how your launch is performing.
If your numbers are far lower than expected, you may have a traffic issue or a registration issue. Your site speed may need improvement, or your page needs to be more mobile-friendly. You might need to tweak the copy on your page or check that all your links and forms are working.
Dig deeper into your traffic sources
If you want to know where your traffic is coming from, you should be using UTMs, bits of code added to your links. (I’ve talked about UTMs basics and how to use them before!).
A launch dashboard shows you how people are coming to your site and the actions they took when they arrived.
Imagine the kinds of decisions you can make when you know exactly how different traffic sources convert. Maybe you’re pouring a lot of time and energy into Instagram only to find that your target audience doesn’t use it as much as Facebook. Or you notice that your first email brought in a high number of interested registrants, but the next two didn’t perform as well.
With this information based on your data, you can improve your current launch as it goes on. You can apply what you’ve learned to future launches, too!
View your sales numbers and revenue generated
Once the free training portion of our hypothetical business’s launch is over, it’s time to check on sales. A launch dashboard will give you sales information in a variety of ways:
- By how many people are moving through your sales funnel
- Your total sales numbers, which can be broken down according to offer
- According to the source of traffic, which can be broken down into individual email
- By payment processor
- By device
As you can see, a launch dashboard lets you get granular with your data. You can see at a glance how your sales are performing with total sales numbers, but you can also see if your bumps and upsells are priced appropriately, or if your products are bundled in a way that makes sense.
Similarly, you can see which of your emails are driving traffic and sales. Launch periods typically involve a more high-intensity email sequence, so you may be sending up to 10 or 15 emails. You want to know which ones are leading to conversion and which aren’t.
Lastly, I like to track devices and payment processors used for sales. They may not seem as important, but they can help you pinpoint any problems with your sales funnel or checkout process. You can get totally up-to-date sales data from your cart tool or payment processor, too.
Visualize daily sales in three different ways
If you’ve never executed a launch before, I can tell you that they tend to be energetically draining. You get through that first day on a rush of adrenaline, and excitement takes you through close-cart day. But that middle period? It can be very hard to stick with it while watching your numbers rise and fall.
That’s why I like to visualize daily sales in three different ways on a launch dashboard:
- By cash collected during each day of the launch
- By product sales on each day of the launch
- By pay in full vs. payment plan each day of the launch
Sales numbers tend to dip in the middle of launches, which can make us panic and question everything we’re doing! But with this data collected by day, you can ground your thoughts in fact and logic.
For example, you can remind yourself that, based on past data, you see 30% of sales on the first day, 10% of sales over the next 4 days, and 60% of sales on the final day. You have to see your whole launch through.
Execute your current launch (and future launches) with ease
I hope this blog helped you imagine what a dashboard can do for your launch!
When you’re in the thick of it, it’s so important to have all the data you need at your fingertips to make decisions and adjust your launch strategy as needed. A launch dashboard can prevent extra stress and uncertainty that business owners experience. The data you glean from your launch can improve your launches in the future, too.
Interested in learning more about what a custom launch dashboard can do for your business? Let’s talk! I’d love to help you take your launches to the next level — and make them as calm and successful as possible.
